customer satisfaction

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The Key Building Block for Your Customer Relationship - 10/13/26


An automotive manufacturer gets supplies for their vehicles from all over the world.  They have arrangements, service level agreements, expectations for timing and quality of all the parts.  And when they gather all these supplies, they assemble the cars.  They test the cars.  Then they take pictures of those Read more

Be Flexible to Fill the Gaps - 10/6/26


The non-profit has the expected challenges.  There are only 3 people in the organization, yet, they have the same responsibilities of a larger company.  They have to do finance, sales, marketing; they deliver their services to the community, and they need to keep a pulse on what’s going on Read more

Is This Good Customer Service? - 9/29/26


A friend of mine reached out to me recently as she waited for the electrical technician to show up at her house to do some minor repairs.  She had never worked with this company before, but they sent a text about the tech who was soon to arrive. The message Read more

Ownership when Fixing Others’ Errors - 9/22/26


We were conducting training with a client recently, and one of the participants, Jackie, is in a role in his organization where he goes out to the customer site to investigate issues, address customer complaints, and fix problems.  While he’s at the site, he often gets an earful from Read more

Why “No” is So Important - 9/15/26


The employee told the caller: “I don’t think that is possible.” The customer eventually hung up, and redialed to ask a different employee the same question. The employee responded to the customer: “That’s probably not the best way to do it.”  Then, the customer kept asking question after question, arguing Read more

It’s Not “You,” It’s “I” - 9/8/26


During a business writing course that I took years ago, the instructor had us write an e-mail.  I can’t recall if it was written to a co-worker or customer, but after writing this e-mail, she had us count every “I” and “You.”  We talked about how we need to Read more

It Shouldn’t Make a Difference, But… - 9/1/26


We have this conversation with lots of our sports clients, but the principles apply across all different industries.  Too many service representatives view a conversation with a customer as a transaction.  Just get him off the phone as quickly as possible.  The customer is Joe Public, not Joseph Pendergrass.  Read more

Use What the Customer Gives You - 8/25/26


Scenario #1: The customer sent an e-mail to the general inbox at the company.  The message noted that the customer needed to get a family member added to their account, but they couldn’t tell from the website how to do so. The next morning an employee opened up the e-mail, Read more

How Better Customer Service is Better for You - 8/18/26


Oftentimes, we have employees in training or workshops who really want to understand what’s in it for them to deliver better customer service.  How does the employee benefit from a better customer experience? Noted below are 5 different aspects of a great experience desired by the customer.  What if... The customer Read more

Manage New Customer Expectations - 8/11/26


The fan had never been to a motorsports event before, but they had been to concerts.  They had been to big conferences.  At those other events, they could park right next to the venue, many of the activities were indoors, and weather was a non-issue.  So, they were not Read more

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DMV Customer Service as a Leader…Really

Posted on January 29, 2014 in Business Advice, Government Please leave a comment

When a government has to look to the Department of Motor Vehicles for customer service best practices, you know there’s an issue. But the question is, will the DMV really provide a solution? With the almost universal bad reputations that DMVs have in the world of customer service, many are focused on turning around their image and their operations.

According to the article DEM Looks to DMV for Customer-Service Tips, apparently Rhode Island’s DMV has had some success. Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management (DEM) launched its own customer service improvement initiative and benchmarked with the DMV to identify opportunities to improve performance and change its culture.

The DMV has been going through a process to upgrade its customer service based on lean manufacturing techniques, modeled after a Rhode Island manufacturer. The core of the lean program was to focus on utilizing employee input to improve efficiencies and be able to dedicate more time/effort on “higher-value projects.”

Another way to look at this is that the DMV looked for process improvements and productivity gains to improve performance. Much of the issues and improvements were identified by the staff themselves. There are several key lessons here:

  • Remember that process is a primary driver of customer satisfaction. Make it simple and quick for a customer to have a great experience.
  • Make it easier for employees to deliver timely, high quality, and consistent service by making their internal processes more efficient and standardized.
  • To improve how the work is done, ask the workers themselves.

Learn a little Government lesson. Tap into your team to improve your customer service.

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Speed the Transformation of Your Customer’s Experience

Posted on December 17, 2013 in Business Advice, Education Please leave a comment

I’m constantly flummoxed by executives who feel that the only good idea is a new idea, the only means to success is through their own innate creativity. A COO once told me that trying to create simplicity in operations for staff (so they could more consistently deliver a great experience to their customers) wasn’t challenging enough.

The best executives need to realize that there’s a multitude of great examples of customer service cultures and wonderful customer experiences in other businesses, other industries. And there’s no shame in learning from others to speed the transformation of an organization.

In the article City School District taking lesson from Wegmans, the Rochester School District announced that it was going to train staff on many of the same customer service principles and techniques that Wegmans Grocery Stores (with a reputation for great customer service) utilize. This includes quick issue resolution and fostering a WWWD (“What would Wegmans do?”) mindset.

The point is not to say that we all need to look to our local grocer for customer service tips. Rather, in Education or other industries (local government, healthcare, etc.) that are not always known for a great customer experience, sometimes it’s better not to look at industry peers. It’s best to look to those who have the reputation for being the best in a particular aspect of business. Think Zappos for culture, Chick-fil-A for consistent customer service in a transactional environment, or Amazon for personalization in a high tech/high volume world.

Speed the transformation of your customer’s experience by benchmarking with best-in-class performers OUTSIDE your industry.

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Create a Patient-Centered Culture

Posted on November 14, 2013 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

Zappos delivers great customer service, but its leader seems to talk mostly about his corporate culture. Disney is always brought up in seminars we provide for their great customer experience, but so much of what makes it a great experience is the consistently high performance of its “cast members.”

Culture and customer service are intertwined in great companies, and that’s why it’s no surprise that the article NY nurse executives focus on positivity addresses how to drive higher patient satisfaction by creating a patient-centered culture. According to the article, successful healthcare organizations possess a “strong unit and organizational leadership that promote a service culture tied to operations and finance; effective partnerships with patients and families; an engaged and satisfied workforce; and a strong performance improvement focus.”

Note what’s being discussed here…leadership that’s strong…leadership that promotes service…an organization that realizes patient/customer satisfaction is intertwined with operations (processes) and finance (business outcomes). They address partnering with customers, having motivated staff, and continually improving.

I agree with all these points; most cohesive cultures are created and fostered by leaders who have a well-articulated vision, who practice what’s preached, who understand the process impact on patient satisfaction and the patient satisfaction impact on financials.

But some of the “hows” are missing from the article. How do you get an engaged workforce? How do you continually improve? Leadership is the start, but that focus on patient satisfaction has to begin with your hiring process and criteria for staff, what you reward them for doing, and how you hold them accountable. A patient-centered culture requires training and an internal communication plan that is proactively conveying the messages to staff that you want repeated to patients. Patient-centered cultures require smooth information flow from patients and families to staff and leadership, so data-driven improvements can be made real-time when needed and through root-cause analysis when recurring issues occur.

To create a patient-centered culture, get leadership on board, and get the ball rolling through hiring, motivation, accountability, training, communications, process design, and continuous improvement.

Create a great culture with your people to create a great experience for your customer.

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